Alexandra Neldel

German actress Alexandra Neldel started in show business by chance: a casting director discovered the 19-year-old Berlin native, who was working in a dentist's office at the time, at a polo match. Though she had no theatrical training, Neldel's homespun looks brought her the ingenue role of Katja Wettstein on the popular German soap opera "Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten," beginning in 1996. During Neldel's three years on the show, Katja became one of its most popular characters. When Neldel left the soap in 1999 to pursue a film career, she immediately landed a key role in the successful crime caper "Bang Boom Bang." Neldel alternated between film and television work for the next several years, achieving particular success as one of the female leads in the rowdy, Kevin Smith-influenced drug comedy "Lammbock." In 2005, Neldel returned to television full-time in the lead role of the soap opera "Verleibt In Berlin." The show, the German adaptation of the popular Latin American telenovela "Yo Soy Betty La Fea" (remade in America as "Ugly Betty"), was an enormous success, but Neldel chose to leave after its first season. Neldel's next television success came with 2008's crime drama "Innocent," in which she played the lead role of Dr. Anna Winter.